15. Parameters and Options

The function / Parameters / includes the following options:

/ Format / - selection of the drawing sheet format, either from the standard A4 ... A0 formats or derivatives, or any format with given dimensions
/ Scale / - selection of the drawing scale, or from among the pre-defined scales 1: 1 .... 1: 10000, 2: 1, 5: 1, or any scale set in the form 1: X where X can be any real number
/ Accuracy / - selecting the accuracy of the representation of coordinates of objects. All object coordinates and angles are expressed as 4-byte floating point real numbers, i.e. real numbers written in scientific notation with a limited range for mantissa and features. The result is that the real number representation is only approximate, and one floating point number can represent different real numbers within a certain range. The smaller the number, the more accurate it is. The higher this number is, the accuracy of the number decreases. The use of floating-point numbers, however, in contrast to double precision numbers, allows to reduce the memory use to store drawings, speeds up editing operations, and reduces the size of disk files of drawings. In any case, it is recommended to limit the coordinate accuracy to the actual needs. The required accuracy is different when designing machine parts, and different when drawing, for example, water supply networks. AlfaCAD allows you to select one of the pre-defined accuracies, 0.05 mm, 0.1 mm, 0.2 mm, 0.25 mm, 0.5 mm and any other accuracy in the form of a real number, expressing accuracy in [mm].
/ Units / - [mm], [cm], [m], [''], [']
/ Coordinate system / - selection of Cartesian or geodetic coordinate system. In geodesy there is also a Cartesian, rectangular coordinate system, with the X axis pointing vertically upwards (north direction) and the Y axis pointing horizontally to the right (east direction). Any point P in this system is defined by a pair of coordinates written as: P (Xp; Yp).
/ Local system / - selection of the local coordinate system by indicating the starting point of the system, and geometric or numerical determination of the rotation angle of the local system with respect to the global system.
/ Sheet sectors / - a group of parameters concerning mainly, but not only, electrical diagram sheets, divided into sheet sectors, facilitating the reading of the diagrams.
Sectors in drawings are useful for identifying locations on a drawing sheet. This is very similar to a street address that goes straight to your destination. Sectors (or "zones") are shown on the border of the drawing frame, with sectors indices A, B, C… on one axis, and a sectors indices 1,2,3… on the other. The location defines the sector as: A2, C5, D3 and so on. Symbols can be used in annotations to define which zones the elements are located in.
The zones are defined in the drawing sheet format. AlfaCAD offers the following drop-down options in the menu
/ Zones /:
/ Frame / - Yes / No
/ Zones / - Yes / No
/ zone numbers Prefix / - horizontal sector description prefix
/ Numbering from / - first sector number
/ Reverse / - Yes / No (reversed numbering)
/ zone Height / - sector length in vertical direction [mm]
/ zone Width / - sector length in the horizontal direction [mm]
/ Margin width / - zone margin width [mm]
/ frame offset / - distance of the frame from edge of the drawing sheet [mm]
/ frame line thickness / - selection of one of 5 line thicknesses
/ zone line thickness / - selection of one of 5 line thicknesses
/ Frame color /
/ Zone color /
/ Style / - up, down, up and down, around
/ Font / - font used to describe sectors


/ Pointer size / - 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 points, or "Max" which means the cross of the pointer spanned between the drawing window boundaries
/ Edit ALFACAD.INI / - edit the configuration file ALFACAD.INI

The / Options / function includes the following options:

/ Drawing board configuration / - selection of frame colors, background and menu text color, cursor color, block, frame, drawing background, text of the desktop editing field, in a given AlfaCAD session (locally) or in each open session (globally).
/ Auto-panning factor /
- a slice of the width and height of the screen shifted during a single panning step of the drawing view.
/ Opacity of fills / - on-screen opacity of discs, solids and traces fills in the range of 30%...100% with 10% step. Opacity of fills is used to simplify display of the drawing where filled areas exist, to not cover any other object located in the filled area. All objects are displayed in the opposite order than they were placed, so e.g. the text placed on disc area or solid quadrangle, would be covered during redrawing making it invisible if opacity is 100%. The order of displaying object can be quite random especially when object are grouped into blocks (objects becoming elements of blocks are relocated, creating continuous chain of objects or another blocks). Opacity lower than 100% (standard is 70%) lets other objects stay visible.
While printed on the printer, or saving in image files, there is different strategy of creating printout. First images are put on the printing page, next all filled objects, then all other primitives, so primitives are always visible on the printout or saved image files.
Opacity factor is saved in each drawing file individually.

/ Desktop font /
- selection of one of the 36 available patterns and the height of the desktop font, selected depending on the screen size and individual preferences. The appearance of the fonts is presented in the menu.
/Desktop background/
- desk desktop background texture (not drawing background). The desktop of the desk on which the drawing is located is visible when the drawing presentation scale is so small that the entire drawing or one of its dimensions, width or height is smaller in the given presentation scale than the size of the AlfaCAD desktop window. This space is also used in the / File // show Desk / function, where any other drawings open in other AlfaCAD windows will be shown. From the desktop, it is possible to select a drawing to edit it by switching the AlfaCAD window of the selected drawing, and taking control over the keyboard and mouse.
/ Save window setup /
- save window settings as default, when opening another session of the program
/ Window setup /
- the function offers the following options:
/ extend Horizontally /
/ extend Vertically /
/ extend Diagonally /
- fills all available screen space (except for the taskbar)
/ extend Window /
- allows you to set any size and position on AlfaCAD window on the screen
/ restore Last /